A migrant worker steps out of his accommodation in an area next to a coal power plant in Beijing during a smog-free and also the last day of the city's first "red alert" for air pollution, in this December 10, 2015 file photo. REUTERS/Damir Sagolj/Files

Study Concludes Cutting Air Pollution Is Actually Causing The Arctic To Melt Faster

A new study claims Europe’s decades-long battle to reduce air pollution in its major cities, rather ironically, may be accelerating the Arctic ice melt.

While man-made global warming is the main driver of a warming Arctic, the study argues European regulations to cut air pollution has lessened the amount of particles to reflect incoming solar radiation. This causes warming to accelerate, according to researchers.

Scandinavian scientists wrote in their study Arctic “warms by 0.5 [degrees Celsius] on annual average in simulations with declining European sulfur emissions in line with historical observations, compared with a model simulation with fixed European emissions at 1980 levels.”

The basic idea is that air particles, called aerosols, tend to have a cooling effect over areas where they are concentrated. That’s because they reflect incoming solar radiation away from the Earth’s surface, thereby causing some cooling. For decades, the shield of European air pollution above the Arctic has been whittled away, accelerating warming caused by greenhouse gas emissions.

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